


good looks/dumb luck

by badacts



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Justice League: Origin, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25764208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: Unless you were Superman or Wonder Woman, part of being a vigilante didn’t particularly include sticking around for clean-up. Bruce, sore and exhausted, had shot Lantern a look in the aftermath of Darkseid and said, “I don’t suppose you’re taking passengers.”“What do I look like, your chauffeur?” Lantern had replied, but he’d generated the same jet they’d flown to Metropolis in even as he said it.
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 263





	good looks/dumb luck

“You sure you don’t want me to drop you off at your lair?”

“Any rooftop will do,” Bruce replies evenly. It’s not as though Lantern can’t literally Google his name and find out his address himself, but that doesn’t mean he intends to invite the man into his home. Also, there’s the issue of their current mode of transport: it’s bright green. 

“Wish, command, et cetera,” Lantern says. He sounds distracted, which doesn’t seem particularly on brand for him. “You know, someone really needs to do something about the street light situation here. I don’t think cities aren’t meant to be this dark during this century.”

“I’ll get right on that.” 

Unless you were Superman or Wonder Woman, part of being a vigilante didn’t particularly include sticking around for clean-up. Bruce, sore and exhausted, had shot Lantern a look in the aftermath of Darkseid and said, “I don’t suppose you’re taking passengers.”

“What do I look like, your chauffeur?” Lantern had replied, but he’d generated the same jet they’d flown to Metropolis in even as he said it. Unexpected but not unwelcome. Gotham isn’t that far from Metropolis as the crow flies, and certainly far closer than Coast City where Lantern appears to be based.

“There,” Bruce suggests now, because Lantern doesn’t seem to be any closer to actually picking a spot to touch down. He accepts this without comment, lowering them down through the winter Gotham haze. 

The construct breaks apart, embracing Bruce in a more direct fashion for a brief moment before landing him lightly on his feet and then fading completely. It’s very warm, and far more solid to the touch than it appears. The translucence takes some getting used to: Bruce is fairly unflappable, but there’s something disturbing about flying in a ‘plane’ that you can straight through the floor of. 

Lantern, still faintly luminescent thanks to his construct cast, looks left and then right. “Wait. How do you actually get around from here? Do you have a twenty-foot horizontal leap?”

“No,” Bruce replies. “I have a car.”

“You have a  _ car _ ? People make out Batman’s some kind of demonic folktale when he’s out here  _ driving _ around Gotham?”

“It’s faster than walking.”

Lantern opens his mouth as though to reply, and then closes it and shakes his head. “You know what? Never mind. I’m outta here, Bats. If there’s another intergalactic foe headed Earth’s way, I’ll call you.”

Bruce snorts silently, already halfway across the roof. The Batmobile is parked two blocks over in an alleyway, and his bed is calling him. 

From behind him, there’s a growing green light, blooming bright enough to mark out on the horizon. Then, with a reflective sputter, it dies. Lantern says, somewhere between surprised and resigned, “Oh fuck.”

Bruce turns back to him just in time to see his eyes roll back in his head as he collapses.

* * *

“Ow,” Hal mutters. His whole body hurts, very much. 

“Lantern,” a deep voice says. “Are you injured?”

“Broken arm,” Hal says helpfully. That voice is Batman. Some dude called Bruce Wayne. Extremely attractive, kind of an asshole. 

“Your…light went out,” Batman points out.

“Ring’s outta juice.” Hal really should have noticed that before he let it get this bad. Now he’s going to have fly home  _ commercial _ . He should have made Batman walk back to Gotham. Hal would have ended up falling out of the sky somewhere over Iowa, but at least it wouldn’t have been Gotham.

“That seems inefficient,” Batman notes, as though he doesn’t rely on smoke bombs and punching people with his regular human fists. Like Hal said: asshole. “Does it recharge itself?”

“I need my lantern,” Hal replies, pushing himself up with his good arm. The roof surface tilts disturbingly.

“Where is it?”

“Under my kitchen sink.” There’s a distinctly judgmental silence. “What? No one looks under there. Bathroom sinks have prescription pills in them, but no one’s gonna steal your dirty sponge and detergent.”

He’s wearing the jeans and button-up from under his uniform, and it’s freezing cold. Also, without his construct splint, his arm fucking hurts. He says, “You know, that was an asshole move.”

“What are you talking about?” Batman asks. Bruce. He really does sound like an asshole.

“Taking my ring,” Hal replies, pushing himself up carefully to kneel. It seems to take a long time and he still has to pause halfway for a break. “Seriously. Dick. Ow.”

“This should keep your arm stable for now,” he says, as though Hal wouldn’t recognise a medical splint that he seems to have procured from nowhere. Maybe it’s the way Hal is squinting. One of his eyes might be shut? It’s hard to tell. Blinking furiously doesn’t clear anything up either. “Do you have something in your eye?”

“I’m winking at you,” Hal replies, and then uses Batman to lever himself the rest of the way upright. “Oh, hey. That building says ‘Wayne’ on it.”

“Wayne Enterprises.” It’s either a correction or an agreement.

“That’s a weird coincidence,” Hal says peaceably. “Wish they sold burgers instead of phones. Where’s the nearest fast food joint?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Batman says, “I’ll take you.”

“You can’t earn my forgiveness that easily. But okay.”

Batman tows him to the edge of the roof, securing him with an arm around his waist. That’s good, because Hal’s feet feel a long way from his head right now. Suddenly, four hours of sleep in a cornfield sounds preferable - he’d still wake up with a dead ring in Iowa, but at least he’d be unconscious through this wobbly part.

“Hold on,” Batman says, and drops them off the side of the building.

Hal has a split second to think o _ h fuck _ , another to realise the quiet  _ wshh-thwick  _ is a grappling gun being fired, and then the Gs of falling knock him out cold again.

* * *

The next time he comes to, he’s in a cave. An actual, literal cave. There are stalactites and everything. Also, his unconscious brain apparently devoted its time to remembering who exactly Bruce Wayne is. That means that his first emotion, upon waking, is embarrassment. 

“Oh fuck,” he says to the cave roof, some forty feet overhead. “Your superpower is being rich?”

“At this moment, my superpower is preventing you from revealing your identity in a Big Belly Burger in Central Gotham,” a disinterested voice replies from his left.

Hal groans. “Christ, I’d kill a man for some fries right now. No offense, Bats.”

“None taken. Your arm has been casted, but you might want to follow up with your local hospital.”

Hal pushes himself up to sit, examining said cast. It looks professional. “You did this?”

“That would have been me, sir,” another voice says. Hal jerks, head whipping around to find the speaker.

He’s a rail-thin man in his sixties, dressed like someone from Downton Abbey. Or what Hal imagines butlers wear in Downton Abbey. He says in an elegant British accent, “Alfred Pennyworth, sir. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” Hal replies faintly, looking back to Batman. Bruce. Wayne. Whatever. “Batman is real, and he has a car  _ and _ a English butler.”

Wayne has his cowl pulled down. He’s still attractive, and an asshole. “I did say it was insane.”

Hal makes a face. “Okay, well, thanks for this. If you just direct me to the exit of your literal cave, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“And go where, exactly?” Wayne asks dispassionately.

“Home.” Batman probably knows where the Green Lantern is based, but Hal isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying the name himself.

“And you intend to get there, how?”

“Are you telling me that Gotham doesn’t have public transport?” Hal asks, standing up slowly. “Or is Uber just something that happens to other people for you, rich boy?”

He becomes aware of the fact that he’s shaking, just a fine shivering across his entire body. The combination of adrenaline crash and exhaustion isn’t a pretty one. It’s hardly his first go on this particular carousel though. 

“Gotham’s public transport is chronically underfunded,” Wayne says. “I have a jet.”

“Fuck you,” Hal says automatically, and then, “No, wait. Can I fly it? Because if so, I rescind that first thing.”

“You can’t fly in your condition,” Wayne replies, as though Hal is pregnant or something. “I meant that I’ll fly you back to Coast City.”

“What,  _ you’ll _ fly me? Like, you, Batman?”

“No, like a chartered pilot will fly you. I’ll just pay for it.”

Hal blinks at him. “Why?”

Wayne stares back. If Hal didn’t know better, he would think the man was nonplussed. In reality, he probably just thinks Hal is brain-damaged. “Is that a yes?”

“Well, I’m not going to say no. I know you probably haven’t ever flown commercial, but the likelihood of catching a communicable illness is really high.”

“A valid concern,” Wayne replies, with no discernable humour. He turns back to the screen, tapping for approximately a minute. Then he picks up his phone and appears to send a text. “By the time you reach the airfield, the jet should be ready to go.”

“Al...right,” Hal says.

“Would you like me to drive him, sir?” And Jesus Christ, Hal had forgotten about the butler. The unobtrusiveness must be trained into him. Or Hal has sustained a head injury in the last twenty four hours. 

“I’ll do it. Thank you, Alfred,” Wayne replies. “Give me five minutes, Lantern.”

He somehow undoes the cape from about his shoulders in a practiced move, slipping it over Alfred’s waiting arm, and then disappears around a boulder. It’s a magnificent receding view without the cape in the way. Hal attempts not to notice too obviously with Alfred right there - the man’s gaze is at least as penetrating as his employer’s.

“So, uh, where did you learn...first aid?” he attempts. Not his best attempt at smalltalk ever, but it’s not as though Alfred doesn’t know he’s not his best right now. Also, it’s just occurred to him that having his arm treated by a butler is convenient but perhaps not medically sound.

“I was an SAS medic, sir,” Alfred replies from where he’s hanging the cape on a mannequin. “Many a year ago now, of course.”

Hal is dumbstruck once again. It does make something of the other man’s bearing make sense though, he will admit. 

“Something we have in common,” Alfred continues.

“I was airforce,” Hal corrects automatically. Well, they’ve had a good look at his face at this point, so there’s no reason to deny it, he supposes. “A pilot.”

Wayne reappears then, wearing slacks and a turtleneck with a coat over top. “In the car, Lantern.”

“No ‘please’?” Hal mutters, but follows Wayne without further protest. “Thanks, Alfred. Much appreciated.”

There’s a flight of stairs up and then a large door to go through with a handprint scanner, which admits them into an aesthetically low-ceilinged room. Hal, eyebrow raised, says, “Any car in particular?”

“The black one,” Wayne replies. 

Hal whips a look at him, stunned. “Was that a  _ joke _ ?” There are a dozen different examples of expensive in the sleek garage, but they are all, to a model, black.

“Hm,” Wayne murmurs by way of reply, removing a set of keys from his pocket and clicking the remote. The hazards on an AMG flash twice.

“Wait, why do you lock the cars in your super-fancy Bat-garage?” Hal asks suspiciously as he slides into the passenger seat. It’s surprisingly roomy - in his not-very-extensive experience with sports cars, they aren’t generally designed for people over six foot - but the cast on his arm is unwieldy.

Wayne angles him a look, and then says, “I have a child.”

Hal sputters, but manages to not say,  _ you?! _ Instead, what comes out is, “Do they commit carjackings when you leave them unsupervised?”

“Not recently,” Wayne replies, starting the car. The engine turns over with a quiet snarl, and then they’re zooming up a long sloping access tunnel that looks more like something out of a spaceship than anything else Hal has seen on earth so far. “It’s thirty minutes from here to the airfield.”

“Okay,” Hal says. “Tell me more about your kid.”

“I thought you might prefer to rest.”

“Is that the polite way of saying ‘fuck off’?”

“At what point did you come to the conclusion that I’m polite?”

“Oh sure, what was I thinking.” Hal lets his skull drop against the headrest. He is exhausted, but still.

“He’s extremely bright,” Wayne says, after a moment. “Talented, also.”

“‘S he like sports?”

“Gymnastics and climbing everything in sight.”

“I bet your fancy house has lots of trees in the garden.”

“A fact I hadn’t found concerning previous to his arrival, certainly.”

“I like how you talk,” Hal says, and then winces imperceptibly. It’s true, but he certainly didn’t mean to say it. “I mean, you sound like a massive dildo.”

“A fascinating observation,” Wayne says dispassionately. 

“I’ve met aliens that sound less like aliens,” Hal adds. The only thing he’s ever known to do when he digs himself a hole is to climb in and keep digging.

“But you like it,” Wayne replies, which certainly does the job of shutting him up for the rest of the ride.

They pull up at a small private airfield on the northern outskirts of the city, entering through a barrier arm that seems to rise before Wayne can even come to a full stop. There’s a small collection of planes clustered on the tarmac, largely of the private jet variety. Wayne drives directly up to one with a slimline ‘W’ emblazoned on the tail wing. The door is open and the stairs are lowered. The only thing missing is a woman in a short skirt and jaunty hat ready to usher him aboard.

Hal climbs out of the car - ouch - and begins his sidle towards the stairs. “Well, thanks for this.”

“You’re welcome,” Wayne says, and then, “Lantern.”

Hal pauses. “Yes?” The tone gives him a sudden sense memory of Batman tapping him on the chest and telling him to be a team player. 

“Don’t die.”

Hal chuffs a low laugh, turning back to look at the other man. He’s closer than Hal expected. “Same to you.”

The hand he starts to reach to shake Wayne’s ends up on his hip instead. Because Wayne’s mouth is on his. Because they’re kissing. Hal manages to process that realisation just in time to actually participate in the kiss.

It’s brief, not too intrusive. More a gentle test than a passionate declaration of lust. Wayne pulls back but doesn’t go far. At this distance, Hal can see that his eyes are less blue than they are a pale grey ringed blue at the edge of the irises. 

“Huh,” Hal’s mouth says without input from his brain.

“Hm,” Wayne - Bruce? - says by way of reply, drawing back. “Enjoy your flight, Lantern.”

“Sure,” Hal says, and then steps forward and kisses him again. This time, more. Wouldn’t pay to let him get the last word in. It leaves his mouth more than his brain buzzing this time around, the way he prefers it. “See ya, Bats.”

Once he’s inside the jet and settled into his seat, he finally exhales. It’s good to know that the second the Guardians decide he’s too decrepit to keep up, he has a secondary source of income. Surely someone will pay good money for his tell-all  _ I helped save the world and then made out with a billionaire _ interview.

“Sir?” A man in an immaculate suit asks. He looks like he went to Alfred’s school of subtlety, from his polite confusion at Hal’s lack of baggage for him to take. “Can I get you a drink?”

Hal leans back in the buttery leather, folding his arms behind his head. “You know what? Why not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Join me upon [tumblr](https://badacts.tumblr.com/)


End file.
